5 ms·

It will be interesting when all of a future political candidate's past phone calls, emails and chats can be pulled up and searched for anything and everything.

tokenadult 12y ago
That's already happening in some countries, with the exception that those countries don't have "political candidates" because they are frank one-party dictatorships. I would hate to be an organizer of a new civil-society organization in north Korea, for example, or even in China, which is still a dictatorship even though it is recently a less stark dictatorship than its client state north Korea.
api 12y ago
I've thought for a long time that in the future only the most boring people who have ever lived will be able to get elected to any high office. We're talking boy or girl scouts with perfect attendance, a 4.0 GPA, never tried any sort of drug, never curse, had totally dull sex lives, and have only the most mainstream beliefs imaginable.
- x1798DE 12y ago
  I think it's more likely that the bar for "scandal" will be significantly raised. Consider what has happened in just 20 years where we went from Clinton who "didn't inhale" (marijuana) to George Bush, whose former use of cocaine was reported but never admitted, to Barack Obama, who admitted to marijuana and drug use in his own autobiography. I imagine that politician boringness and attitudes towards what is scandalous will meet somewhere in the middle, so you'll have slightly more boring people in office, but no so boring that people would care if they found out about some trips to a sex club or something.
- cstross 12y ago
  s/boy or girl scouts/puppets raised in a bubble by sociopaths/ ... with policies dictated by the folks whose sociopaths are best at hiding behind their puppets. It's going to be very, very ugly.
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago
  > I've thought for a long time that in the future only the most boring people who have ever lived will be able to get elected to any high office. We're talking boy or girl scouts with perfect attendance, a 4.0 GPA, never tried any sort of drug, never curse, had totally dull sex lives, and have only the most mainstream beliefs imaginable. It's actually worse than that because nobody lives that life. So what happens instead is that everyone has to pretend to but only the ones the people with the big database don't like have their deviation from the norm sent to the major media outlets for publication.
- r00fus 12y ago
  No, who will be more likely elected to office are likely corruptible or already corrupt individuals whose vices are known levers for allowing their wealthy/corporate masters to control them easily and cheaply. Anything that breaks through can be controlled by a thoroughly corrupted corporate media. This is the natural outcome when money is equated with speech... only the money has any say anymore.
dmix 12y ago
We'll have a lot more Eliot Spitzer's no doubt. Piss off the wrong person and suddenly you get singled out for using prostitutes. Even if the same prostitutes that are known to be popular with lots of other politicians. Only one gets annihilated.
davepage 12y ago
Is it not interesting that Mr. Obama evolved from "Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their government is doing," to "The administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration" [1]? What could have caused this? [0] http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOp... [1] http://cpj.org/reports/2013/10/obama-and-the-press-us-leaks-surveillance-post-911.php http://cpj.org/reports/2013/10/obama-and-the-press-us-leaks-...
cryoshon 12y ago
The NSA had a file/active series of wiretaps on Obama from at least 2004 onward.[0] We live in interesting times. [0]:http://www.businessinsider.com/the-nsa-spied-on-barack-obama-2004-russ-tice-2013-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-nsa-spied-on-barack-obama...
- eli 12y ago
  I don't find that allegation credible. Russ Tice became a whistleblower in 2005, but never mentioned the future president was specifically and illegally targeted until boasting about it on radio program in 2013?
  - cryoshon 12y ago
    Other information produced by Tice at the same time was turned into a well-researched article that ended up winning the Pulitzer: http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/7040 http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/7040 It doesn't get much more credible...
    - eli 12y ago
      He was a great source for an excellent piece of reporting in 2005.
Zigurd 12y ago
It's pretty easy to predict what will happen. It will be a continuation of the current trend against diversity of views in US politics. The system will stagnate because security has been defined as the perpetuation of the system, not agility or adaptation. All nails sticking up will be pounded flat, using omniscient surveillance.
grey-area 12y ago
What makes you think that hasn't already happened? The NSA recorded Washington area codes during the 2008 election campaign, ostensibly due to a typo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-broke-privacy-rules-thousands-of-times-per-year-audit-finds/2013/08/15/3310e554-05ca-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-br...

tokenadult 12y ago

That's already happening in some countries, with the exception that those countries don't have "political candidates" because they are frank one-party dictatorships. I would hate to be an organizer of a new civil-society organization in north Korea, for example, or even in China, which is still a dictatorship even though it is recently a less stark dictatorship than its client state north Korea.

api 12y ago

I've thought for a long time that in the future only the most boring people who have ever lived will be able to get elected to any high office. We're talking boy or girl scouts with perfect attendance, a 4.0 GPA, never tried any sort of drug, never curse, had totally dull sex lives, and have only the most mainstream beliefs imaginable.

x1798DE 12y ago
I think it's more likely that the bar for "scandal" will be significantly raised. Consider what has happened in just 20 years where we went from Clinton who "didn't inhale" (marijuana) to George Bush, whose former use of cocaine was reported but never admitted, to Barack Obama, who admitted to marijuana and drug use in his own autobiography. I imagine that politician boringness and attitudes towards what is scandalous will meet somewhere in the middle, so you'll have slightly more boring people in office, but no so boring that people would care if they found out about some trips to a sex club or something.
cstross 12y ago
s/boy or girl scouts/puppets raised in a bubble by sociopaths/ ... with policies dictated by the folks whose sociopaths are best at hiding behind their puppets. It's going to be very, very ugly.
AnthonyMouse 12y ago
> I've thought for a long time that in the future only the most boring people who have ever lived will be able to get elected to any high office. We're talking boy or girl scouts with perfect attendance, a 4.0 GPA, never tried any sort of drug, never curse, had totally dull sex lives, and have only the most mainstream beliefs imaginable. It's actually worse than that because nobody lives that life. So what happens instead is that everyone has to pretend to but only the ones the people with the big database don't like have their deviation from the norm sent to the major media outlets for publication.
r00fus 12y ago
No, who will be more likely elected to office are likely corruptible or already corrupt individuals whose vices are known levers for allowing their wealthy/corporate masters to control them easily and cheaply. Anything that breaks through can be controlled by a thoroughly corrupted corporate media. This is the natural outcome when money is equated with speech... only the money has any say anymore.

dmix 12y ago

We'll have a lot more Eliot Spitzer's no doubt. Piss off the wrong person and suddenly you get singled out for using prostitutes. Even if the same prostitutes that are known to be popular with lots of other politicians. Only one gets annihilated.

davepage 12y ago

Is it not interesting that Mr. Obama evolved from "Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their government is doing," to "The administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration" [1]? What could have caused this? [0] http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOp... [1] http://cpj.org/reports/2013/10/obama-and-the-press-us-leaks-surveillance-post-911.php http://cpj.org/reports/2013/10/obama-and-the-press-us-leaks-...

cryoshon 12y ago

The NSA had a file/active series of wiretaps on Obama from at least 2004 onward.[0] We live in interesting times. [0]:http://www.businessinsider.com/the-nsa-spied-on-barack-obama-2004-russ-tice-2013-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-nsa-spied-on-barack-obama...

eli 12y ago
I don't find that allegation credible. Russ Tice became a whistleblower in 2005, but never mentioned the future president was specifically and illegally targeted until boasting about it on radio program in 2013?
- cryoshon 12y ago
  Other information produced by Tice at the same time was turned into a well-researched article that ended up winning the Pulitzer: http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/7040 http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/7040 It doesn't get much more credible...
  - eli 12y ago
    He was a great source for an excellent piece of reporting in 2005.

Zigurd 12y ago

It's pretty easy to predict what will happen. It will be a continuation of the current trend against diversity of views in US politics. The system will stagnate because security has been defined as the perpetuation of the system, not agility or adaptation. All nails sticking up will be pounded flat, using omniscient surveillance.

grey-area 12y ago

What makes you think that hasn't already happened? The NSA recorded Washington area codes during the 2008 election campaign, ostensibly due to a typo: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-broke-privacy-rules-thousands-of-times-per-year-audit-finds/2013/08/15/3310e554-05ca-11e3-a07f-49ddc7417125_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-br...